"In the course of a somewhat checkered career, Mac, I've seen some suckers, an' I've told some lies, but this here was th' crownin' event of my life. We had applications for stock the next morning before me an' Bull was out o' bed. Four hundred and thirty-one would-be colonists comes flockin' around us, tryin' to hand us $500 each. Bull questions 'em all very closely, and outer the lot he selects the biggest damn fools in evidence. He was careful to select little skinny men whenever possible. They was a lot o' Willie boys an' young bloods lookin' for adventure, an' me an' Bull McGinty was just the lads to give it to 'em in bucketfuls. The little nosy reporter with the hair was fair crazy to come, but McGinty gets a jackleg doctor to examine him an' swear that he's sufferin' from spatulation o' the medulla oblongata, housemaid's knee, and the hives. We're mighty sorry, but it's agin the by-laws to bring him along. He felt heartbroken, so just before we up hook with the expedition, I had Bull give him an' the other newspaper boys a hundred dollars each. They was fine lads, all three, an' give us lots o' free advertisin'. "Bull got greedy an' was for charterin' another schooner an' givin' all comers a run for their money, but I was wise enough to see the danger o' numbers, an' argued him out of it. I went mate on the _Dashin' Wave_, as per program, an' on a lovely summer day we towed out, with half San Francisco crowdin' the wharves an' wishin' us bon voyage, which is French for a profitable trip. "We had a nice lot o' sick children on our hands before we was over th' Potato Patch. We didn't have a regular crew, exceptin' Bull McGinty an' me an' the Chinaman who shipped as cook. However, some of the brotherhood used to go yachting, an' they was all the crew we needed. We had a fair run to Honolulu, where we took on five thousand dollars in trade--beads, an' mouth organs, an' calico, an' juice harps, an' dollar watches, an' a lot of old army revolvers with the firin' pins filed off, and what not. "From Honolulu, we clears for Pago Pago, where all hands went ashore an' enjoyed themselves visitin' the different points o' interest. From Pago Pago, we goes to Tahiti, and from Tahiti to Suva, and in general gives them adventurers as nice a little summer vacation as they could have wished for. Bull was for dumpin' the lot at Suva an' gettin' down to business--said he'd fooled away enough time on the gang--but I argued that we'd took their money--$50,000 of it, and they was entitled to some kind of a run, an' if we marooned them, like as not they'd send a gunboat after us, an' the fat'd be in the fire. Bull gave in to me finally, though he growled a lot about the profits bein' all et up by the brotherhood, appetites increasin' considerable at sea, an' all that.